Field
This disclosure relates generally to digital media players, and more particularly to devices, methods, and computer program products for controlling playback of digital media objects.
Related Art
Digital media players, especially dedicated digital media player devices such as Apple Inc.'s iPod™, have been popularized in recent years as consumers largely transition from the use of analog media formats, such as cassette tapes and records, to digital media formats (i.e. digital media objects) such as audio and video files, and the like. These dedicated digital media players can store digital media objects locally on a hard drive or flash memory and have inputs and a display that allow a user to navigate (i.e. browse) through a collection of digital media objects that are stored on the device. Navigation typically requires receiving a set of inputs from a user. Digital media objects can be selected, for example, by artist name, album, or user-defined playlists. The “click wheel”, popularized by Apple Inc.'s iPod™ line of digital media player products, is among the most well-known inputs for navigating through digital media objects stored locally on a digital media player.
FIG. 1 is an example of a prior art digital media player 100 having such a click wheel. The digital media player 100 provides hardware that allows a user to browse through and select from digital media objects stored locally on the digital media player 100. Such media objects can be stored, for example, on a local hard drive or flash memory (not shown). Digital media player 100 also includes a display 110 and a combination of touch technology and traditional button inputs, including a center button 120 and a click wheel 130. The click wheel 130 uses capacitive sensing to detect the movement of a user's fingers in either a clockwise or counter-clockwise direction along the surface of the click wheel 130, which serves as an input for navigating through various menus presented on the display 110 or for adjusting playback volume. A menu button 142 is also provided, as well as traditional button controls commonly seen in analog media playing devices such as a skip button 144, a back button 146 and a play/pause button 148. While the digital media player 100 is easy to use when navigating through a limited set of media objects stored locally on the device, it may be inadequate for navigating through large catalog of media content, for example, as might be hosted on a remote server.
More recently, media distribution services such as media streaming services have allowed consumers unlimited access to large catalogs of digital media content. Consumers can now use devices to connect to remote media distribution servers from which they can download or stream media content on demand from catalogs containing millions of digital media objects. While consumers are no longer limited to the small set of media objects stored locally on their devices, navigating through these vast catalogs of millions of digital media objects requires considerably more complex user interfaces, for example, that integrate search, recommendation and discovery features. Thus, media distribution services typically require the use of desktop, mobile or web applications running on general purpose computing devices such as personal computers, tablets or smartphones or on touchscreen-based dedicated media player hardware such as Apple Inc.'s iPod Touch™.
When consuming media content, locating a particular media object from a media collection using existing technology, particularly using general purpose computing devices, can be difficult and time consuming and, indeed, cumbersome to some users. In turn, this may be frustrating to some users, particularly during times when the user cannot devote much of his or her attention to making the selection. There exists a technical challenge in simplifying interfaces and more so in simplifying interfaces for navigating large catalogs of digital media content.